Harris’s choice for vice president will launch a seven-state campaign blitz

Harris's choice for vice president will launch a seven-state campaign blitz
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Compared to her opponent, former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris will have a significantly busier travel itinerary this week as she embarks on a swing-state campaign blitz.

With just three months until Election Day, Harris is racing to present herself to voters, so this will be a crucial week for her. Additionally, it will be her debut appearance alongside her unnamed running mate.

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It’s one of the busiest weeks of campaigning for the general election as Harris will travel to seven swing states in five days starting on Tuesday.

Six candidates have been screened by her staff to be her running mate: Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

A person with knowledge of the discussions claims that on Sunday, Kelly, Shapiro, and Walz had separate sessions with Harris.

Tuesday in Philadelphia will be Harris’s first appearance with her running mate as they begin their cross-country trip.

Her travel schedule contrasts sharply with that of President Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Since the June 27 debate, Trump has made speeches in ten states, while Biden spent the last 24 days of his campaign visiting eight states. Harris will visit seven states in less than a quarter of the time she will be traveling this week.

In 2020, Harris is scheduled to visit Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, which she and Biden turned blue. She will also visit Nevada, where Democrats narrowly prevailed, and North Carolina, where Biden lost by a tight margin.

Democratic allies claimed that the trip demonstrates the generational divide between Harris and Biden and Trump.

Voters’ concerns about Biden’s age continuously dogged his candidacy, and in his last weeks as the front-runner, a wave of congressional Democrats urged him to hand the mantle to a younger generation.

Amanda Renteria, the national political director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, stated that “age really does matter” in a candidate’s capacity to devote time to lengthy campaign visits.

A generation separates Harris (59) from Trump (78) and Biden (81).

Biden became the oldest-ever presidential winner in history in 2020. By the end of his tenure, if elected, Trump would be the oldest president in office.

“It’s remarkable what candidates can accomplish when they’re traveling and you don’t know what day it is or what hour it is, but everyone is there,” the speaker remarked. And that’s something you can only do for so long. And I don’t know how you keep up with that when you’re as old as Trump.

This week, Trump is expected to make remarks at a banquet and a rally in Montana, a state he won with 56.9% of the vote in 2020. Additionally, he has a fundraiser scheduled for this Saturday in Colorado, a state that Biden won by a comparable percentage in 2020. It is believed that neither state is a swing state.

When contacted for reaction, Steven Cheung, the head of Trump’s campaign communications, cited the overall discrepancy in the number of campaign travels taken by Trump and Harris.

“Over the course of this cycle, President Trump—who began his campaign over a year and a half before Harris became the apparent Democratic nominee—has visited more battleground states, attended more rallies, fundraisers, interviews, and interactions with local reporters,” Cheung stated of Trump.

“Since Kamala Harris was selected as the Democratic nominee, she is unable to conduct even a basic media interview,” he said. Since Biden’s withdrawal from the race on July 21, Harris has not participated in a sit-down media interview; however, she has responded to queries from the media during press conferences.

Following his severely criticized debate in Georgia in June, Biden’s team focused on mitigating the negative effects. Before holding a rally in Wisconsin, Biden visited fundraisers in New York, New Jersey, and Virginia. He also appeared at a rally in North Carolina.

His subsequent campaign travels were to Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada; the last trip was canceled due to a case of COVID-19. He left the race a few days later.

Speaking on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, Abhi Rahman stated that “There undoubtedly would have been more blitzes like this one” if Biden had continued in the campaign.

However, “Prior to Republicans having an opportunity to define the vice president and herself, there is undoubtedly a strong desire to,” Rahman stated. “Thus, this is definitely in line with the timetable.”

The Trump team targeted Biden’s cognitive ability during his time as the front-runner, playing on voters’ worries about his advanced age. However, since Harris is a younger generation than Trump, Republicans have had to change their strategy.

According to Bill Galston, a Brookings Institution fellow and former member of President Bill Clinton’s administration, “She seems to be highlighting her relative freshness and energy, in my opinion.” “She is making the point without having to say anything about it.”

According to Aleigha Cavalier, a Democratic strategist with the strategy and marketing firm Precision Strategies, Harris’ campaign swing is also in line with how politicians generally ramp up the pace as the election gets closer. However, in contrast to Trump and Biden, she said Harris’s speed of travel is “a real advantage.”

“Given that the election is less than a hundred days away, I think it can make a big difference that she is willing and able to attend this many events in such a short period of time,” Cavalier said.

According to Eric Jaye, a Democratic strategist with the campaign consulting business Storefront Political Media, traveling for campaign events helps uncover prospective future volunteers, speed up fundraising, and increase prospects for local media coverage. Above all, he argued, politicians are energizing thousands of “micro-influencers” during rallies.

The speaker asserted that “they’re all holding up their phones, and they’re publishers,” and that when rally attendees share photos of themselves with a politician, “that, as a recommendation for their networks, will be distributed to them.”

“The mere act of 10,000 people expressing their trust in Kamala Harris has significant media and communication value,” Jaye stated. “Thus, these can be considered micro-influencer conventions.”

The Harris team has already hailed a wave of volunteer support, saying in a statement made public on Saturday that volunteers had knocked on 172,000 doors and made 2.3 million phone calls in the preceding 12 days.

According to Renteria, the seven-state tour “shows that she has a ton of energy.” It demonstrates that her campaign is prepared, well-thought-out, and capable of carrying out its tasks. Thus, it’s really thrilling.

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